Alberta Eugenics Board - Amendments To The Sexual Sterilization Act

Amendments To The Sexual Sterilization Act

By 1937, 400 operations had been completed and amendments to the Act were made. The first amendment came shortly after the Social Credit government came into power in 1934. The new Minister of Health, Dr. W.W. Cross, was dismayed that only hundreds of individuals had been sterilized when thousands could have been due to consent requirements. Following the change in legislation, if individuals were regarded as mental defectives, consent was no longer necessary for their sterilization. A month after this amendment a special Alberta Eugenics Board meeting was held in order to review past cases of individuals who were now eligible for sterilization.

Another part of the 1937 amendment increased the Board's power: sterilization procedures were approved if the Board deemed an individual “incapable of intelligent parenthood”. The success of this amendment was celebrated in 1937 in an article published by two mental health professionals, R.R. MacLean and E.J. Kibblewhite, where they noted the increasing simplicity with which the Board could proceed with its business.

In 1942, an additional amendment widened the application of the Act to include more mental patients. Non-psychotic individuals with syphilis, epilepsy, and Huntington's Chorea were now encompassed by the Act; however, for reasons unknown, the Board maintained that consent was still required for these cases.